Not another retirement home site, please!

Written by Val Compton on 06 December 2013.

Sirs

The thought of another huge site in the Salisbury Road being given over to my age group and above fills me with horror. Marlborough is already gaining the reputation of being a “retirement town” due to the high number of over 55s accommodation on managed sites – I think we are up to five prime sites at the last count, plus of course Care Homes. Surely we are more than “fulfilling our quota”, if there were to be such a thing. If we further skew the demographics of this town by inviting another tranche of retirees to live here, and indeed to die here, we will decrease the vibrancy of this town which young people and their families bring. The wider picture is so important to Marlborough’s future.

I am unsure if this is a planning consideration, but in the greater scheme of things, it absolutely has to be taken into account. We need younger people, business people, workers, children and new generations of ideas and thinking.

I have decided to make no comment on the plans, access, lack of parking, effect on the infrastructure, problem with finding careworkers (who will inevitably be underpaid) or anything else, because my answer is simply NO. It is a bad idea. This scheme should not be allowed to go ahead.

Everyone knows how much I care about elderly and disabled people – it has always been a priority and it was the closure of Day Hospital for the Elderly at Savernake that actually triggered the Judicial Review. But we need to concentrate on the well-being of elderly and disabled people who are living here right now.